HAPPY FACE SAD FACE
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
The term “high concept” is one more often applied to a Hollywood blockbuster than to a play getting its World Premiere in one of L.A.’s many 99-seat theaters. Studios seem far more resistant to films that can’t be pitched in a few succinct words than are our local stages—not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with “high concept,” a fact made abundantly clear by R.J. Colleary’s Happy Face Sad Face, now playing at Hollywood’s Lillian Theatre.
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THE SANTALAND DIARIES (UNDERSTUDY PERFORMANCE)
Wednesday, December 5th, 2012
That practice makes perfect was proven on Wednesday by the multitalented Matt Crabtree in the last of his Guaranteed Understudy Performances in David Sedaris’s The SantaLand Diaries, the true story of the writer’s humiliating (but hilarious-in-retrospect) stint as a Christmas elf at New York City Macy’s “SantaLand.” With two performances under his belt last year, and another two this holiday season (including a last-minute step-in for Paulo Andino the previous Thursday), this fifth and (possibly) final understudy performance turned out just about as fabulous as fabulous can be.
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86’d
Monday, November 26th, 2012RECOMMENDED
What happens when you take an obscure direct-to-video movie from the ‘90s, adapt it as a stage comedy, edit it down from 86 minutes to a little over an hour, give it a new title and World Premiere it at Hollywood’s Theatre 68? The answer is 86’d, an enjoyable albeit slight (and very short) comedy that has quite a bit going for it … and against it as well.
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ANGELS FALL
Saturday, November 24th, 2012
Confine a group of strangers in an enclosed space and what do you get? Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential classic No Exit? Michael Leoni’s smash L.A. hit Elevator? TV’s Big Brother, now in its 14th season?
To this list Los Angeles theatergoers can now add Lanford Wilson’s Tony-nominated (for Best Play of 1982) Angels Fall, now getting a marvelous intimate staging by The Production Company, a 30th Anniversary revival which not only does ample justice to Wilson’s themes but does so in the most entertaining of ways.
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HUGHIE
Thursday, November 22nd, 2012RECOMMENDED
Andrew Schlessinger delivers a tour-de-force performance as a down-on-his-luck hustler in Hughie, a quirky Eugene O’Neill one-act that will be of greatest interest to fans of the Nobel/Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright.
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RISE
Wednesday, November 21st, 2012
Take a man and a woman with a shared past, place them in an enclosed space with no intermission to lessen the tension, and you’ve got a recipe for dramatic sparks. Scottish playwright David Harrower did just this in his multiple-Scenie-winning Blackbird, and Cal Barnes follows that example in his Hollywood Fringe Festival hit Rise, currently keeping audiences on the edge of their seats at Elephant Stages.
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AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
Monday, November 5th, 2012
A mysterious host invites eight guests, each of them a stranger to the others, for an island holiday off the coast of Devon, a pair of married servants in attendance and said host (or hostess?) nowhere to be seen. Does this sound like recipe for murder?
To a diehard Agatha Christie fan, it not only does, it sounds suspiciously like And Then There Were None (aka Ten Little Indians), published first as a novel in 1939 and then adapted for the stage by the author herself in 1943.
Hollywood’s Actors Co-op now revives this Christie gem in a production that makes for as entertaining and suspenseful a mystery thriller as any Christie fan or neophyte could possibly ask for, thanks to incisive direction by Linda Kerns and topnotch performances by an all-around terrific cast.
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THE BEAT GOES ON
Saturday, October 27th, 2012
Talent is ageless in The Beat Goes On, Jackie “Pink Lady” Goldberg’s latest senior-citizen song-and-dance showcase designed to entertain audiences from eighteen to eighty (and beyond) .
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Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
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